Attentional Modulation of the Phonetic Significance of Acoustic Cues

Four experiments addressing the role of attention in phonetic perception are reported. The first experiment shows that the relative importance of two cues to the voicing distinction changes when subjects must perform an arithmetic distractor task at the same time as identifying a speech stimulus. The contribution of voice onset time to phonetic labeling decreases when subjects are distracted, while that of FO onset frequency increases. The second experiment shows a similar pattern for two cues to the distinction between the vowels /i/ (as in "beat") and /I/ (as in "bit"). Under low attention conditions, formant pattern has a smaller effect on phonetic labeling while vowel duration has a larger effect. Together these experiments indicate that careful attention to speech perception is necessary for strong acoustic cues (voice-onset time and formant patterns) to achieve their full impact on phonetic labeling, while weaker acoustic cues (FO onset frequency and vowel duration) achieve their full impact on phonetic labeling without close attention. Experiment 3 shows that this pattern is obtained when the distractor task places little demand on verbal short-term memory. Experiment 4 provides a data set for testing formal models of the role of attention in speech perception. Attention is shown to influence the signal-to-noise ratio in the phonetic encoding of acoustic cues; the sustained phonetic contribution of weak cues without close attention stems from reduced competition from strong cues. This principle is instantiated in a network model in which the role of attention is to reduce noise in the phonetic encoding of acoustic cues. Implications of this work for understanding speech perception and general theories of the role of attention in perception are discussed.